30 day music-creation trial

[Canadian]

For 30 days I will spend most of my awake-time creating music. The point of this trial is to eradicate the control my perfectionism has over my desire to create music, make myself generally more comfortable with the quality of music I produce, and of course to put me in a habit of being productive on a daily basis.

At the end of each day I will post on this forum a link to a sample of music that I had worked on earlier that day. Right now I mostly hide my music in shame (not because I think it is objectively bad but because of perfectionist thoughts that I know aren't realistic but have a hard time shaking off), so I figure putting it out in the open and starting to feel a bit proud of myself again will go a long way in encouraging me to create more in the future.

[Nameless One]

One thing I've never regretted is spending time on music production. Every time something came out that I liked, I had a new song to enjoy for a life time.

[missbhaven]

Props to you. The hardest part for me is putting myself out there, like you a can be a perfectionist.
Is there a way you plan on going about it? A piece a day? Will you be able to edit a piece at a later day, if so how many limits are you gonna set in the 30 days (and are they gonna be based on the critiques here or your own feeling?)

*I will be tuned in*

[Nameless One]

I've never found musical reviews to be useful except as a way to connect with other people who make tracks. When I make something I do it my way. But as I said, trading reviews is a great way to make new musical friends

[Lauxa]

Can't wait to hear what you come up with!

[Canadian]

Originally Posted by missbhaven

Props to you. The hardest part for me is putting myself out there, like you a can be a perfectionist.
Is there a way you plan on going about it? A piece a day? Will you be able to edit a piece at a later day, if so how many limits are you gonna set in the 30 days (and are they gonna be based on the critiques here or your own feeling?)

*I will be tuned in*

I plan on doing one piece a day from start to finish, but that's not a rule. If I want to work on 5 songs in one day or one song for 5 days that will be OK, as long as I am being productive.

[CoolBee]

There's some kind of 'album production' challenge over a month which takes place soon. Similar to NanoWriMo but for music. Not sure where the link is.

[billionairekid]

What kind of music do you make? As a growing musician myself with the same challenge (perfectionism and letting others hear my creations), I'd like to see how you handle this challenge.

[Canadian]

Originally Posted by billionairekid

What kind of music do you make?

Instrumental-electronica-rock, or something like that.

[Canadian]

END OF DAY 1

Hooray! A huge success!

I am retiring for the day after about 8 solid hours, which is a lot for me. I would go longer but am mentally exhausted right now.

There was a lot of trial and error and about 90% of it was error, so the song itself doesn't sound like 8 hours worth of work. However I did learn a lot today, and that's obviously more important.

Song #1:
SONG#1.mp3 - File Shared from Box.net - Free Online File Storage

This song is not indicative of what my style will be. I am used to making my songs entirely on the computer but am a beginner when it comes to recording anything, so I will be working on creating more "traditional" music for the start of this 30 day trial and then once I am comfortable with that I will focus on more "unusual" music in my own style.

[Canadian]

END OF DAY 2 - FAILURE

I have been really tired today so spent most of the day sleeping and not much time on music. I need to reset my sleeping schedule to something much earlier so I will be going to sleep very early this evening, and spending more time on music will probably keep me up. I only spent about an hour on music today, so I am considering the day a failure and will be restarting on day 1 again tomorrow. Hopefully with an earlier sleep schedule, though, that won't need to happen again.

SONG#2.mp3 - File Shared from Box.net - Free Online File StorageDefinitely not much of a song.

[missbhaven]

Originally Posted by Canadian

END OF DAY 1

Hooray! A huge success!

I am retiring for the day after about 8 solid hours, which is a lot for me. I would go longer but am mentally exhausted right now.

There was a lot of trial and error and about 90% of it was error, so the song itself doesn't sound like 8 hours worth of work. However I did learn a lot today, and that's obviously more important.

Song #1:
SONG#1.mp3 - File Shared from Box.net - Free Online File Storage

This song is not indicative of what my style will be. I am used to making my songs entirely on the computer but am a beginner when it comes to recording anything, so I will be working on creating more "traditional" music for the start of this 30 day trial and then once I am comfortable with that I will focus on more "unusual" music in my own style.

I really liked the intro, and when the second part comes in, I can feel there is another movement to come near the end as it gets heavier.
In the begining I was reminded of a tool song my man was listening to last night.
nice piece.

[Tren]

Canadian, it sounds great. I really like it!

Originally Posted by Canadian

END OF DAY 1

Hooray! A huge success!

I am retiring for the day after about 8 solid hours, which is a lot for me. I would go longer but am mentally exhausted right now.

There was a lot of trial and error and about 90% of it was error, so the song itself doesn't sound like 8 hours worth of work. However I did learn a lot today, and that's obviously more important.

Song #1:
SONG#1.mp3 - File Shared from Box.net - Free Online File Storage

This song is not indicative of what my style will be. I am used to making my songs entirely on the computer but am a beginner when it comes to recording anything, so I will be working on creating more "traditional" music for the start of this 30 day trial and then once I am comfortable with that I will focus on more "unusual" music in my own style.

[Tanja]

Originally Posted by Canadian

[B]

SONG#2.mp3 - File Shared from Box.net - Free Online File StorageDefinitely not much of a song.

Nice work Canadian, I like it!
Good luck with the rest of the trial!

[Canadian]

Glad you people like the songs so far.

DAY 1 (Second Round)

The day went extremely well. I spent nearly the entire day so far either practicing guitar or making today's song, and the best part is that it didn't feel like work whatsoever. And now that I have an earlier and more sensical (antonym of nonsensical) sleep schedule, I am very confident that the rest of the trial will go very smoothly.

By the first day the problems caused by my perfectionism were gone, that's not to say that I am no longer a perfectionist but rather that it no longer causes resistance when I try to get something done, whereas before it would prevent me from even starting anything.

On to the song:

It is in the style of Nintendo Entertainment System games; it is also much more substantial than the other songs. Check it out!
SONG#3.mp3 - File Shared from Box.net - Free Online File Storage

[ohTen]

interesting challenge. much respect for dedicating yourself to it.

you might want to try this:

Album-A-Day

i find it to be the absolute best way to generate material. i've done two so far (you can listen here (#1) and here (#2). I have taken many of the ideas i recorded from these projects and fleshed them out into complete songs. I haven't done one in a long time, but after struggling with other methods of songwriting, am finally ready to return to it.

NaSoAlMo and RPM Challenge are two similar events that take the idea of the album-a-day and stretch it out over the span of a month. I find this to be too much time and have never successfully completed either NaSoAlMo or RPM.

Honestly, successful songwriting is all about finding a workflow that works for you. I tend to compose ideas and flesh them out at a later date. After they're fleshed out, then i will re-record and produce them. The whole process is very organized and is perpetually ongoing.

[Canadian]

I have been giving this a lot of thought, and I decided to end the trial at this point. There were 3 reasons I decided to start the trial:

- To overcoming the paralyzing effect perfectionism had over creating music.
- To become more comfortable with sharing music I am not particularly fond of.
- To get myself in a productive routine.

By the first day the first two were completely taken care of, as if by magic.

Now the only reason to continue the challenge would be for the sake of establishing productive habits, but it probably is not even close to the most effective structure for me. The style of music I want to produce won't work out very well if I try to complete the songs quickly.

Originally Posted by ohTen

much respect for dedicating yourself to it.

Haha, lol. That's hilarious.

Originally Posted by ohTen

you might want to try this:

Album-A-Day

i find it to be the absolute best way to generate material. i've done two so far (you can listen here (#1) and here (#2). I have taken many of the ideas i recorded from these projects and fleshed them out into complete songs. I haven't done one in a long time, but after struggling with other methods of songwriting, am finally ready to return to it.

That's looks really neat. I am currently listening to your album #1, I like it!

Originally Posted by ohTen

Honestly, successful songwriting is all about finding a workflow that works for you. I tend to compose ideas and flesh them out at a later date. After they're fleshed out, then i will re-record and produce them. The whole process is very organized and is perpetually ongoing.

That makes perfect sense. Hopefully I can establish a great workflow plan for myself soon.

[Jason Vincion]

Canadian, I like your track! It could be developed quite a bit more, but what you've got so far sounds pretty cool. The delay on the introductory acoustic guitar is a nice choice! A friend of mine did an album similar to your (now defunct) 30-day trial and was able to come up with some really interesting tunes.

As a matter of fact, I've been doing something similar since the beginning of the year - my issue is that I've been confining myself too much to a particular sound, so I started up a project where I could be more improvisational and record something without worrying about how it sounded.

Then, I post-produce it to my liking, mix loops together and I've come up with some strange experimental trip-hop jams. It's the most fun I've had making music in a while and a lot of the folks that I've shared the songs with have enjoyed the output.

Philistine on the Sidewalk is the name of the project and the link is where you can find the songs. So far, I'm doing a good three songs a month without any trouble. I love it!